Tag Archives: XPS

There’s a new breed of laptops coming out in the market. Inspired by the MacBook Air, this new breed, known as “Ultrabook” strives at achieving a perfect balance of weight, performance and battery life. Dell has introduced their first set of such laptops, in form of the Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook. Let’s see how the Ultrabook performs.

Packaging:

The packaging was pretty good. The XPS 13 came in a laptop briefcase-esque carton, with lots of foam padding which offers shock protection. With the foam padding, the box gives you an impression that the Ultrabook is a lot bigger than it actually is.

Inside the “briefcase” was the laptop enclosed in a plastic cover placed within a cardboard box. Present in the box was the XPS 13, an envelope featuring quick start guide, warranty & registration information and safety single page quick usage guide. The XPS 13 Ultrabook also came with a Windows 7 Professional SP1 Reinstallation disk, a drivers & utilities DVD, FastAccess Face Recognition software CD and Webcam central CD.

Looks, Build Quality & Weight:

Dell seems to have taken a lot of design cues from the MacBook Air. From the shape to the thickness to the tapering edges, the XPS 13 doesn’t have any unique design to distinguish itself from the MacBook Air. Not that this is a bad thing – the XPS 13 is amazingly sleek and very, very light. Heck even if you compare it with Google’s Cr-48, the pilot ChromeBook, the XPS comes out as the winner between the two in terms of weight. The top cover has a nice matte silver finish with a Dell logo. Unlike Apple and HP machines, the logo isn’t illuminated. The XPS 13 feels very good to hold and there’s no plasticky feel anywhere on the laptop. The bottom of the laptop has a nice rubber-style texture and helps in getting a good grip on the bottom of the laptop.